Schools decline to distribute Vitamin D fliers

The mood at Tuesday night’s school board meeting was grim as Justin Frese, the school district’s assistant superintendent of business, urged the school board to approve the current budget and then revise it within 45 days when the dust settles a bit in Sacramento. Following the defeat of the ballot measures last month, the state government now has no recourse but to cut expenditures to close a $24 billion statewide hole. Education, presumably, is going to take another hit.
“The news is really serious,” said Frese. “We’re looking at a magnitude that we haven’t seen before … a multi-million-dollar problem for our district for the coming year.”
Frese also said that the budget figures from Sacramento were changing rapidly. “New information is coming in every day and rumors are circulating about where the cuts are going to come. These numbers are too important to get wrong,” he said. “It is important to understand that Sonoma Valley has been fortunate enough to skirt cuts for basic aid thus far. But with this latest iteration of cuts from Sacramento, those cuts may be inevitable.”
The school board unanimously approved the budget. Discussions will continue at a special school board meeting to be held on Wednesday, June 24. The open session is tentatively scheduled for one hour between 5:45 and 6:45 p.m. at the school district offices.
Prior to the gloom and doom, trustees and district staff had reflected on the excitement at the many graduation ceremonies in the prior weeks. One of the teachers singled out student Sergio Gonzalez, who had pulled himself away from gang activity and completed high school through the district’s independent study program. Gonzalez will be going into the Marine Corps and is setting an example for his younger brother. “This is what we are working for,” said trustee Nicole Abate Ducarroz as she blinked back tears. “Every school in this district has these success stories. Maybe we’re not perfect in some areas but in others, we really shine.”
One of the last items on the agenda took a long time to resolve. It was a request by Lauren Ayers, an active proponent for increased consumption of Vitamin D by everyone, especially children, to send a promotional flyer out through the school district. Several trustees questioned the validity of some of the claims made in the flyer, noting that her references did not always appear to support those claims, and some trustees questioned the appropriateness of using the schools to promote one side in a controversial issue outside the “core competencies,” as trustee Helen Marsh put it, of the school district. Only Ducarroz was in favor of the proposal, which was rejected by a vote of 3-1, with trustee Camerino Hawing abstaining.
In other activity, the board adopted a new curriculum for pre-algebra classes, was informed about new modular classrooms being installed at El Verano and Sassarini, approved new fees for the Sonoma Valley Adult School, and discussed encouraging parent involvement.